The worst thing, I just encountered it a few hours earlier. Update Manager told me there are some updates available so as usual, I clicked the Install Updates button. But later on, it gave me some error and that I have to reboot. So I did. A black screen surprised me with a single line of horror :
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)Now I can't boot into my OS anymore. Right, just what I needed. So I used another PC, searched Google for answers and found one that worked for me. From what I read, this error can be caused by a lot of things. I have no idea what caused it but I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with the Update Manager not being able to finish its installation of the new updates.
Anyway, I thought I won't be able to boot into my OS anymore but that's only because I didn't know about Grub. Now you see how stupid I am. :D If there's anyone else who need to know, here are the steps into loading Grub.
- Turn on your PC.
- Hold down the SHIFT key while it's booting.
- After a while, you should see something like "Grub Loading."
- After that screen, you will see another screen which gives you a list of your kernel versions. You can select which one you want to use.
The problem is still there though. I didn't fix it at all. I'm just using an older version of my kernel which previously worked for me without that kind of problem.
What I did afterwards is to install Ubuntu Tweak, and uninstall the latest kernel version that I have -- because that's the one causing the problem. I found the instructions on how to use Ubuntu Tweak from here. It's pretty simple actually.
- Select "Package Cleaner" from the menu on the left side of the window.
- Click the button "Clean Kernel" on the right side.
- Press the "Unlock" button at the lower right part, then enter your password. (This is pretty much like "sudo", I think.)
- You should see a list of kernel images and headers installed in your PC. Tick the check boxes of the ones you wish to remove. Thankfully, the kernel that you're currently using is not listed to avoid any accidents.
- Press the "Cleanup" button at the lower right to remove the selected kernel images and headers.
